Recorded Case Studies DVDs

RFID in Supply Chain and Logistics Case Study Presentations

The editors of RFID Journal have created a DVD with 21 end-user case studies of the use of RFID in supply chain and logistics, plus four additional presentations by RFID experts.

This DVD contains PowerPoint presentations recorded at events hosted by RFID Journal.

Bonus Presentations on DVD

Improving Operations in the Distribution Center With RFID

McKesson Corp., a health-care services and information technology firm, is piloting the use of mobile RFID readers at its distribution centers. Learn why the firm has chosen to pilot the mobile RFID readers, and hear about the approach that it has taken to reduce the amount of data traffic across its DCs' wireless network using these mobile readers. The presenter will also discuss the company's use of SGLN-96 RFID tags to ensure that location data can be derived using the mobile RFID readers.

Air Canada Cargo has been conducting a pilot to test RFID edge-layer and messaging capabilities that, when implemented, would provide the infrastructure and applications necessary to perform real-time tracking of shipments with minimal human intervention, as well as provide end users with a single interface, and send tracking information to postal authorities. This presentation will provide a pilot overview, including objectives and potential solutions.

Container Centralen has tagged 250,000 metal carts in the United States, and has installed 150 RFID interrogators at U.S. nurseries, greenhouses and fields, as well as at its depots, to track their whereabouts. In this session, recorded at RFID Journal LIVE! 2010, learn how this system—one of the largest RFID deployments worldwide—has enabled the company to reduce labor costs and improve asset visibility.

Speaker:• Sonny Costin, U.S. President, Container Centralen

Tracking Medical and Surgical Supplies With RFID

Radio frequency identification can be employed within a military hospital in numerous ways. The challenge is to find the applications that best benefit the organization. In this session, obtain a comprehensive overview of how RFID is currently being utilized in the U.S. military, and how the U.S. Department of Defense is evaluating the possibilities of implementing the technology within the Military Health System over the coming years.

Sumitomo Electric Lightwave (SEL), a manufacturer of optical fibers, optical cables and other related products, is using an RFID-enabled solution to monitor the level of raw materials in its 30,000-square-foot manufacturing facility. The company's manufacturing process is in operation 24-7, but its warehouse is only staffed for 40 hours a week, leaving a large gap of time during which raw material movements were unmonitored. When manufacturing personnel removed material during off-hours, the warehouse's raw material count was incorrect, leading to occasional material shortages. Hear how the firm is employing radio frequency identification to track raw materials, thereby resulting in fewer material shortages and disruptions to the production schedule.

Kimberly-Clark conducted a pilot program at one of its plants that produce non-woven materials used in the manufacture of Huggies-brand diapers. The pilot showed a decrease in shipping errors, as well as a reduction in loading times. In this session, recorded at RFID Journal LIVE! 2009, K-C explains how it employed passive RFID tags to track the finished materials as they came off the machine and were shipped to the company's manufacturing plants.

Speaker:• Matthew Hudgins, Operations Consultant, Kimberly-Clark

Nestlé Waters Reduces Vehicle Maintenance Costs

Nestlé Waters North America, a leading bottled-water firm, has deployed a wireless vehicle-management system at two sites, with expansion planned to more than 100 locations globally. The system has helped the company to improve its supply chain productivity by establishing accountability for the use of industrial vehicles (such as forklifts). In addition, it has also allowed the firm to streamline its material-handling workflow and provide unique metrics regarding industrial vehicle utilization.

Edison Chouest Offshore, C Logistics Division, a provider of integrated supply-management solutions for drilling, production and construction projects , is using RFID at its facility in Port Fourchon, La., to improve customer service delivery and processing times, as well as inventory accuracy for vendor staging areas. Learn how RFID is helping to reduce expenses and solve the critical issues of staging, manpower, space, loading, scheduling and logistics for oil drilling and production operations in the Gulf of Mexico.

Sonoco, a global manufacturer of consumer and industrial packaging and a provider of packaging services, is integrating UHF tags inside the cores used for European décor paper. The system has been successfully used since 2008 in the firm’s core plant in Lauda, Germany. Hear how the company is utilizing RFID to automatically track each roll of paper throughout its lifecycle. Learn how the system has improved inventory accuracy, and how some of its customers are reporting 10 percent savings on annual paper purchasing.

Leading supply chain executives will share insights derived from their pioneering RFID initiatives, launched in the last year utilizing passive real-time locating system (RTLS) RFID technologies to enable a new level of visibility into supply chain and asset-management operations within enterprises with large-scale needs. The panelists will share RFID applications and use cases newly enabled by the Mojix STAR System across several industries, with compelling economic benefits. These include high-value asset tracking in the oil and gas industry, parts tracking in aerospace, hazardous material management, warehouse shipping and receiving operations, and the tracking and tracing of perishable foods. In addition, RFID Journal LIVE!'s management will showcase how data from the Smart Events application, enabled by the STAR System's passive RTLS capability, can be analyzed and applied to enhance both exhibitor and attendee experiences.

Senior executives need to understand RFID’s growing importance for supply chain efficiency, inventory accuracy and reverse logistics throughout the lifecycle of each product. Using RFID to enhance its retail replenishment strategy, agricultural company Monsanto can now track its products with unprecedented levels of granularity, utilizing item-level tagging across its enterprise. In this session, the company will share how it employs RFID to make the most efficient and effective use of existing resources and how it developed this strategy.

DePuy, a division of Johnson & Johnson, receives more than half of its ExpressKit orders to be shipped out on the same day they arrive. Employees had to bar-code-scan each component in each kit twice—sometimes more than 100 per kit—then repack them before shipping. Learn how the company implemented an RFID system that dramatically improved shipping accuracy, shortened the kits’ typical check-in and -out times and made it possible to more accurately bill surgeons for the items they actually use.

Each month, Free Flow Wines sells 200 to 300 kegs of Silvertap wine, which is shipped via distributors to restaurants and bars throughout the United States. The company is using RFID to track the kegs as they leave its cellars, as well as empty containers as they arrive and are cleaned and then refilled. Hear how the automated tracking solution reduced the number of lost kegs, how the system ensures that kegs are properly cleaned and reused in a timely manner, and how all casks could quickly be located in the event of a recall.

Norsk Lastbærer Pool (NLP)—an organization established by Norwegian consumer products goods (CPG) manufacturers and retailers to manage a nationwide pool of pallets —is transitioning to plastic pallets and totes with embedded UHF RFID tags. This allows companies to track when the tagged pallets are packed, shipped, received at distribution centers and shipped again to retailers. NLP is also utilizing RFID within its own operations. Learn how the RFID pallet program is delivering real supply chain benefits to CPG companies.

Speaker:• Geir Vevle, CTO, HRAFN

RFID Journal Award 2010 for Best Use of RFID in a Product or Service: Almacafe

Almacafé, the coffee-warehousing subsidiary of the National Federation of Coffee Growers of Colombia, was selected for the Best Use of RFID in a Product or Service for a system that delivers traceability of Colombian specialty coffees from the farm to the consumer.

Garment manufacturer G&P Net is employing RFID at its four distribution centers in Italy to control distribution and combat gray-market sales, which tarnishes the image of a product and costs the manufacturer millions of euros in reduced product value and legal fees. Learn how G&P Net uses RFID to optimize logistics processes, to protect its trademark and track a specific item’s shipment route, enabling it to track which retailer received each item.

By leveraging the supply relationships of its suppliers and customers, using new and exciting technologies, and integrating RFID into more of its logistics footprint and processes, the U.S. Defense Logistics Agency (DLA) will soon provide improved visibility beyond just receiving goods into inventory. In this session, learn how this capability will deliver improved availability, trust, responsiveness, speed and efficiency within the defense supply chain to support the war effort.

Today's supply chains that handle perishable goods are increasingly global and diverse in nature. This diversity stems from the variety of players involved, as well as their sizes, technological and process maturities, and geographic locations. Traceability is critical, with issues ranging from product recalls and food safety to manging risk, improving shrinkage and reducing costs, advancing the consumer's right to know, and improving supply chain visibility. IBM and Matiq are working together to implement a traceability solution to track meat products from farm to consumer sale. RFID technology is automating the collection of data and creating the basis for visibility in this solution. This session will discuss Matiq's visibility project, and provide a global perspective on perishables traceability and reusable container tracking, as well as a standards-based roadmap for achieving incremental traceability on a proven platform.

Rush Tracking Systems and several key partners provided a live manufacturing supply chain demonstration in the exhibit hall at RFID Journal LIVE! 2011. In this video, see how a variety of RFID technologies were brought together on a forklift truck to automate common tasks, capture data no the location of pallets automatically and virtually eliminate human error. The demonstration covers typical use cases found in industrial manufacturing, automotive, agribusiness, paper, food, consumer packaged goods and government operations.

Colmobil, Israel's largest automobile importer, is employing an RFID system to decrease labor costs and expedite the processing of those vehicles as they are brought into the country at two ports. The company imports 35,000 to 45,000 cars every year, and sells them at 45 dealerships throughout the nation. The cars are brought into the Port of Eilat and the Port of Ashdod, where they are stored until they can be removed from the port's storage parking lot and shipped to Colmobil's pre-delivery inspection (PDI) facility. At the storage parking lot, each automobile is identified by its vehicle identification number (VIN), printed in text and bar-code form on a sheet of paper glued to the car's rear-left passenger window. The firm permanently fits each new vehicle with a 3/4-inch by 4-inch EPC Gen 2 passive ultrahigh-frequency (UHF) RFID tag as it is being unloaded from the ship. In this session, learn how the staff uses a handheld computer coupled with an RFID interrogator and a bar-code scanner to locate and confirm they have the correct car before picking it up. Hear how the technology is being utilized to accurately determine final detailing, safety inspections and registration with the motor vehicle license bureau, and to provide that information to customers.

Speaker:• Gil Katz, CIO, Colmobil Corp.

Adopting EPC RFID Technology for the European Pallet Association (EPAL)

In 2007, the European Pallet Association (EPAL), the association behind the Euro pallet, launched a major EPC RFID pilot. The project's primary objective is to identify each pallet individually, improve the control of production and repair, offer clear authentication and provide better asset management. EPAL also expects to reduce administration costs by automating the licencing fee, reduce the amount of counterfeit pallets, improve the identification of black markets and increase customer satisfaction. In this session, hear how this project will change the logistics world and boost the adoption of RFID in Europe. Gain an understanding of the importance of GS1's RTI pallet-tagging guidelines, and learn how EPAL has assumed a leadership role in their creation and implementation.

Speaker:• Harry Jacobi, CEO, European Pallet Association (EPAL)

Minimizing Picking Errors With RFID

Order-picking is one of the most important processes in internal logistics, and can impact the customer-supplier relationship regarding quality and timely deliveries. In this session, learn how a preset scenario in which an automated high rack supports pick-by-light picking spots, as well as the possible application of innovative identification and measurement systems for monitoring a pick process in order to minimize errors, has been implemented at one facility. Hear how identification and measurement technologies, such as RFID, scanning and weighting, have been combined with suitable sensors to facilitate an evaluation in a lab-based scenario.

Medtronic's Electronic System Design (ESD) division is using an RFID system developed in-house to locate more than 2,600 electronic tools in use at its three laboratories. The system, which uses passive UHF tags, enables workers to quickly locate oscilloscopes, meters and other devices, and document which items left the labs and who took them. Hear how the system has saved workers thousands of hours previously spent searching for the missing equipment.

Speaker:• Carl Closmore, Lab Supervisor, Medtronic

Error Proofing Warehouse Operations With RFID-Enabled Lift Trucks

This session will explain how RFID automatic load identification and real-time indoor position technology for lift trucks is error-proofing processes and enabling a new level of warehouse and manufacturing optimization, including improving labor productivity, outbound shipping quality and asset utilization. These solutions replace bar-code scanning and improve inventory accuracy to virtually 100 percent, while eliminating errors and non-value-added labor, such as searching, expediting and cycle-counting. The ideal organizations to participate would be those in industrial manufacturing, automotive, paper, food or agribusiness, or those that ship palletized goods or utilize returnable containers.

Speaker:• Toby Rush, CEO and President, Rush Tracking Systems

Using EPCIS Data Sharing for Full Supply Chain Visibility

EPC Information Services (EPCIS) is a set of networking and data-sharing standards that offer companies the ability to share information not just about serial numbers read from RFID tags, but also the context of those reads. In this session, learn how EPCIS data can be utilized to help realize benefits from RFID in the supply chain for a wide range of industries. Hear how EPCIS goes beyond just identifying and tracking assets, and turns that visibility into action.

Barcoding is the dominant track-and-trace technology throughout the world. RFID adds more value by automating data capture. While these two technologies are often viewed as competitive, they are actually complimentary. In this session, learn how organizations that employ GS1’s system of standards not only have the foundation for enhanced visibility solutions, but can also implement them in a more cost-effective and timely manner, while realizing the benefits of building those solutions on a common architecture.

RFID Journal LIVE! 2012 is produced by RFID Journal, the World's RFID Authority.

All conference sessions are subject to change, and RFID Journal reserves the right to alter dates, programs and speakers at any time, as circumstances dictate. Sessions without assigned speakers indicate a target topic; every effort will be made to ensure that a program of equivalent standard and value is available.